When playoff season opened for the Raptors, a very tall Lithuanian took a courtside seat next to his wife, where she had customarily sat when she watched him play in Scotiabank Arena. Jonas Valanciunas was there as a guest of the team that traded him in February, and by the time Game 1 against the Orlando Magic ended with a loss for the home team, there were at least a few rueful we-miss-you comments aimed Valanciunas’s way, which he received with a smile.

In his short time with the Memphis Grizzlies, the 7-foot 26-year-old has been excellent, averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds and showing exactly what he could do when a team makes him a primary scoring option.

And after five games in the playoffs, Marc Gasol has shown exactly why the Raptors were willing to give Valanciunas up to get him.

Gasol hasn’t been anything close to a primary scoring option in Toronto, but it’s hard to overstate his contribution to a starting unit that dismantled the Magic. When Orlando coach Steve Clifford spoke on Tuesday night before a second straight curb-stomping from the Raptors, he pointed to the acquisition of Gasol as the moment when Toronto unlocked whole new ways to frustrate opponents. All five starters can play outside the paint, allowing the Raptors to maximize floor spacing and get more open shots. After the all-star break in mid-February, the Raptors shot better than 41% from three-point range, best in the NBA. Clifford said that when Gasol sets up beyond the three-point arc, it opens up the paint and leaves opponents vulnerable to drive-and-kick passing. And then the Raptors went out that night and built a 28-7 lead, almost entirely built on drives and three-pointers.

When the Gasol trade was made, the immediate question was whether the 34-year-old Spaniard had enough left in his big body to shoulder a significant offensive load on a team with designs on a long playoff run. But from the moment he arrived in Toronto, Gasol has been more playmaker than scorer, averaging fewer than eight shots per game and zinging passes all over the court.

Raptors coach Nick Nurse said on Thursday that when the Memphis trade was made, Gasol’s ability as a facilitator was “probably a big part of what we hoped he would be” for Toronto.

“In Memphis he was always playing those two-man games with (Mike) Conley, just constantly handling the ball back and forth, flipping it back, throwing it back-door, finding other people,” Nurse said. “To have a big man that can shoot the ball and pass it to any of the four players, at any time, is a really big asset.”

It certainly was in the Orlando series, where Toronto’s starters were as dominant as those of any team in the playoffs, save Milwaukee, which smashed an underhanded Detroit team in four straight.

Gasol said on Thursday that when he came to Toronto, there wasn’t a specific plan for how to use him. Which, fair enough: They didn’t know they would have him until they had him.

“And as a guy that’s coming in, you try to help in every way you can,” he said. “I’m lucky to be able to do a lot of things on the floor, so whatever they need me to do, I know I can provide.” Gasol has played on the Spanish national team under Sergio Scariolo, now a Raptors assistant, so they had a little better idea of his abilities than would some teams. “But also the team had its own tendencies and their playmakers and way of playing, so you try to find that happy middle and help the team any way you can,” Gasol said. “That’s all that matters to me.”

He helped the Raptors in the Orlando series by basically stealing Nikola Vucevic’s lunch. The Magic’s all-star centre managed just 11 points a game on abysmal 36 per cent shooting, with almost as many turnovers (13) as assists (15). When Gasol wasn’t torturing him on the defensive end, he was losing him for wide-open three-pointers on offence, where he buried more than 50% of his (limited) attempts.

Up next will be Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, himself a terror on both ends of the floor, but someone who has not managed his usual production while matched up against Gasol. It will be an interesting contrast of styles, Embiid the physically gifted wonder-athlete and Gasol the crafty veteran, the former a big man who is remarkably agile for his size and the latter a big man.

Gasol said he knows his versatility is a major strength of his game.

“I’m lucky that growing up all my coaches taught me everything they taught me … they put a lot of tools in that toolbox,” he said. And now that’s what I’m able to do, adapting, depending on the situation and what the team needs. I can adapt to that.”

Except for, you know: “I’m not gonna be a lob threat, I know that. I’m not gonna put that in the toolbox. That was my parents more than anything. But all the other stuff that has to do with basketball, I’m pretty certain I can do.”

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